This line was begun in [M 003 / 1895] on the eastern shore of [M 013 / Lake Baikal] at Mysovaya also under the direction of [I 005 / Pushechnikov], the chief engineer responsible for the Port Baikal connection. Until the Amur line was built, travelers would take the train through Verkhneudinsk (Ulan Ude) and Chita to Sretensk, where they disembarked and boarded a ship for Khabarovsk via the Shilka and Amur rivers. At Khabarovsk the train journey was resumed, completing the remaining distance to Vladivostok.
Labor was provided by 1,700 convicts from the mines and 2,500 exiles with the typical scarcity of experienced contractors. The ridges of the Transbaikalia Range obliged the engineers to follow the winding, steep banks of the Ingoda and Shilka rivers and shelving often had to be blasted for the roadbed. Areas between Verkhneudinsk and Sretensk had deep [G 15 / permafrost] which was dynamited or thawed with wood fires.
The very dry winters in this area required the melting of river ice for drinking water. However, in July 1897 the direct opposite was the case. A spectacular catastrophe occurred in the Yablonovy Mountains on this section that added years to construction. After a torrential downpour, a colossal wall of water swept away part of the Transbaikal Line, including hundreds of [P 010 / villages] and tens of thousands of cattle. The whole river system from the eastern shores of [V 008 / Lake Baikal] to Sretensk was flooded and many rivers changed their channels. Not only did villages have to be rebuilt, but the railway needed to be constructed in another location. The Transbaikal was finally completed in 1900, five years after it was begun.
